Cancun to Palenque, the Whole Enchilada

« Return to Mexico

I arrive at the hotel in downtown Cancun (where you can actually see Mexicans out of hotel uniform) just in time for the orientation meeting. Tucan offers various types of travel packages through Central and South America, and their Adventure trips involve group travel, backpacking style, using local transport. It’s like meeting up with a group of friends, and having one of them do all the admin - booking accommodation, buying bus tickets, scouting bars and restaurants. Says Nicole, who has been volunteering around the world for the past year:
“It’s like having someone take care of all the bad stuff, and we can just focus on the good stuff.”

My group has Australians, English, a Swiss duo, a Montrealer, one x Irish of county Cork, and myself of course, a hairy mutt of nationalities. Ages range from 21 to 40, and our guide, Val - short for nothing but the Mexicans call him Valentino anyway - conforms to the unwritten law of guides everywhere by being Australian, tall, tanned, easy-going, and up for a few pints. After a quick debriefing, we venture out in the flooded streets for some terrific Mexican food, free pool, a bar, with a local cover band that witnessed me jumping on stage to invade their rock star dreams. Singing “how I wish, how I wish you were here” seemed most appropriate. The singer wore a tight black shirt, with a greased ponytail, and had teeth like a box of fallen dominoes.

Cancun is not nearly as cheap as I hoped, but this is, after all, one of America’s most popular holiday destinations. At the bar, I expertly negotiated a two-for-one drink special for the group, possibly explaining why the beers seemed twice as expensive. Other than that, there is not much to report on Cancun. It’s a resort joint for Americans, Canadians, Otherans. At the posh hotels, they’ll tell you that Cancun means something like “the end of the rainbow.” As a Mayan guide explained to me a few days later, it actually means, “snake nest.” Enough said.

There are 21 finalists on the shortlist for the new Wonders of the World, and I was thrilled to discover that I’ve been to 15 of them. Number 16 was just around the corner, a few hours bus ride from Cancun into the Mayan heartland. Chichen Itza is that famously huge Mayan pyramid you might recognize by site if not by name. It is just one of thousands of ruins found in the region, and stands as an impressive, imposing monument to the history of the Maya. Which, in my Gonzo fashion, can be summed up as thus:

Indigenous Maya date back to 2600 BC. Develop unique culture, with advanced calendars still puzzling modern scholars with their incredible accuracy. Somewhat death-cultish, whereby human sacrifice is considered an honour. Spanish invade. Maya conquered, first by land, then by religion. Today, many Maya live in small villages, work menial jobs, and battle to retain language and culture as kids move to the cities and never come back. Still no comment on Mel Gibson’s upcoming Mayan epic, but locals are weary when a rabid, bible-thumping anti-Semite directs a Hollywood movie concerning their distinctly heathen history. The End.

Tour buses lined the parking lot at Chichen Itza, and the air inside the ticket complex smelt vaguely like a hotel resort. Val got our wristbands, organized a good local guide, ushered us through a channel of souvenir stalls and HELLO! Can you see it, armchair travellers, the mysterious pyramid of Chichen Itza, beaming in a hot, jungle sun?

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